Description
With the introduction of Rizlona and Aradune, the EQ community has over-pressured Darkpaw to heavily police AFK botting. While AFK play is never endorsed, the result has left a lot of innocent folks with 7-day suspensions who simply failed to read a buried /say message within a few seconds. Outside of actual AFK botting, players have been suspended for:
There are two ways to use Safeguard:
1. Standalone. Run /mac safeguard and it will handle the rest.
2. Within another macro. Safeguard can be embedded in other macros (like Kissassist) using the safeguard.inc file which will load alongside it. When used in this way, you MUST run the command /startwatch to begin watching. This is designed to prevent multiple characters from spamming responses that run the same macro.
Installation
For both versions, the macro will run and generate an ini file called safeguard.ini. I extremely, highly encourage you to open that file and change the SayResponses setting to things you might actually say. They should not just be generic responses to "are you afk?". Use the default created ini as an example.
Standalone (safeguard.mac)
Extract to your Release\macros folder and run /mac safeguard.
Embedded (safeguard.inc)
Extract to your Release\macros folder
Open your macro of choice, and #include the script at the top, then add /call SetupSafeguard in the Sub Main function. There are 3 places it needs to go to work as intended, in which it will then load alongside the main macro.
See safeguard_sample.mac for further instructions/help embedding it.
How it Works
First and foremost, it prevents your character from keeping an AFK tag. Most GMs consider attacking things while "AFK" to be a red flag.
Second, it starts watching /tell and /say for certain things. With the default settings, any time a GM says or tells you their generic opening line "Greetings, GM Whatever here, are you AFK?" the macro will start preparing a response. You can also change/add to those triggers, or set MatchNumberCriteria=0 to respond to everything.
The way it manages responses is a bit complicated:
1. First makes sure this is a credible source (checks for spaces in name that a player or GM can't have, and if there are other player-characters near you (if enabled), more checks in the future)
2. Randomly chooses a response from SayResponses in the ini file
3. Calculates the amount of time it should wait to respond based on:
a) The MinSecondsToRespond in the ini file
b) The MaxSecondsToRespond in the ini file
c) A derivative of the length of what you're typing
4. Waits for that time to elapse (note that other macros will wait for this to finish as well)
5. Replies to the /tell or /say with that phrase
6. Verifies that you responded with the correct phrase
7. If AntiTroll is on, it will not respond to that person again
A macro like KissAssist will pause from the time a GM-confirmed message is received until the time the Safeguard has verified you responded. This may be troublesome if you're running it on a healer, but a 10-20 second pause is better than a 7 day pause.
Support
If there are any issues/errors/suggestions you encounter with this macro let me know. I'll try to be relatively attentive with updates ahead of the TLP Kunark release. Within reason, I'm happy to help others who want to embed it in other macros as well.
You should expect updates to this macro as people discover/break things and detection methods change.
With the introduction of Rizlona and Aradune, the EQ community has over-pressured Darkpaw to heavily police AFK botting. While AFK play is never endorsed, the result has left a lot of innocent folks with 7-day suspensions who simply failed to read a buried /say message within a few seconds. Outside of actual AFK botting, players have been suspended for:
- Focusing on a long/tricky pull away from the group and missing the message
- Getting aggro while AFK (pet classes are especially at risk)
- Griefing by other players
There are two ways to use Safeguard:
1. Standalone. Run /mac safeguard and it will handle the rest.
2. Within another macro. Safeguard can be embedded in other macros (like Kissassist) using the safeguard.inc file which will load alongside it. When used in this way, you MUST run the command /startwatch to begin watching. This is designed to prevent multiple characters from spamming responses that run the same macro.
Installation
For both versions, the macro will run and generate an ini file called safeguard.ini. I extremely, highly encourage you to open that file and change the SayResponses setting to things you might actually say. They should not just be generic responses to "are you afk?". Use the default created ini as an example.
Standalone (safeguard.mac)
Extract to your Release\macros folder and run /mac safeguard.
Embedded (safeguard.inc)
Extract to your Release\macros folder
Open your macro of choice, and #include the script at the top, then add /call SetupSafeguard in the Sub Main function. There are 3 places it needs to go to work as intended, in which it will then load alongside the main macro.
See safeguard_sample.mac for further instructions/help embedding it.
How it Works
First and foremost, it prevents your character from keeping an AFK tag. Most GMs consider attacking things while "AFK" to be a red flag.
Second, it starts watching /tell and /say for certain things. With the default settings, any time a GM says or tells you their generic opening line "Greetings, GM Whatever here, are you AFK?" the macro will start preparing a response. You can also change/add to those triggers, or set MatchNumberCriteria=0 to respond to everything.
The way it manages responses is a bit complicated:
1. First makes sure this is a credible source (checks for spaces in name that a player or GM can't have, and if there are other player-characters near you (if enabled), more checks in the future)
2. Randomly chooses a response from SayResponses in the ini file
3. Calculates the amount of time it should wait to respond based on:
a) The MinSecondsToRespond in the ini file
b) The MaxSecondsToRespond in the ini file
c) A derivative of the length of what you're typing
4. Waits for that time to elapse (note that other macros will wait for this to finish as well)
5. Replies to the /tell or /say with that phrase
6. Verifies that you responded with the correct phrase
7. If AntiTroll is on, it will not respond to that person again
A macro like KissAssist will pause from the time a GM-confirmed message is received until the time the Safeguard has verified you responded. This may be troublesome if you're running it on a healer, but a 10-20 second pause is better than a 7 day pause.
Support
If there are any issues/errors/suggestions you encounter with this macro let me know. I'll try to be relatively attentive with updates ahead of the TLP Kunark release. Within reason, I'm happy to help others who want to embed it in other macros as well.
You should expect updates to this macro as people discover/break things and detection methods change.
